


Transient

by Chibiness87



Series: An Exercise in Nostalgia [4]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancer Arc, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s04e12 Leonard Betts, Episode: s04e14 Memento Mori, F/M, MSR UST, Post-Episode: s04e13 Never Again, Scully is OOC, love that that's a tag, what can you do?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-06 05:24:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14049861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibiness87/pseuds/Chibiness87
Summary: Her life feels like one big cosmic joke. Only, she’s missed the punchline.





	Transient

**Author's Note:**

> I know the order of these episodes got switched late on because who wants to watch this show after seeing the stupid Cowboys beat the Steelers for their first super bowl loss in franchise history, when they could be out drowning their sorrows? (I’m not bitter, I swear.) And I know GA said, had she known this was the new order, she would have played Never Again differently. But. The order is what it is, and so this is my attempt to explain the actions of our favourite redhead.

**Transient,** by **chibiness87**  
**Rating:** Uh… K+? T?  
**Season/Spoilers** : 04x12, 04x13, 04x14. Leonard Betts to Memento Mori.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine

* * *

 

 **Summary:** Her life feels like one big cosmic joke. Only, she’s missed the punchline.

* * *

 

It’s truly amazing how eight simple words can change your life.

_Nobody down here except the FBI’s most unwanted._

_I’m sorry, but your sister didn’t make it._

_I’m sorry, but you’ve got something I need._

There is nothing like finding out you’re dying to put life in perspective. Not that she knows she’s dying. Not that she’s plucked up the courage to make a call to some old acquaintances from med school, friends she has in the local hospitals, made some appointments to have some tests done.

Just to be sure she’s as fine as she feels.

Because she would know if she was ill.

She would… she would _know_.

Right?

She’s thinking about life, about permanence, all from the other side of Mulder’s desk while he goes on and on about enforced leave and leads he can’t follow and cases in Philadelphia, and all she can think is, _I don’t have a desk_.

No desk, not even a name plate on _his_ desk, no name plate on the door… If anyone was to call the switchboard looking for her, would they even know where to start?

She wants something more.

She _needs_ something more.

Some permanence.

 _Look at me_ , she wants to say. _I’m here. I matter_.

I _do_ matter and I _am_ matter and what is cancer anyway, but an excess of matter in the wrong place?

Is that what Leonard Betts meant?

Does she _have_ something he needed, or _was_ she something he needed?

Is she not just a cancer on Mulder’s life?

He never asked for this.

He never asked for _her_.

He got lumbered with her because they wanted her to spy, to debunk him, and how ironic is it her greatest fear was that _he_ would betray _her_?

She wonders what she would see if subjected to those tapes now.

Her biggest betrayer has become her own body, her own being. At least, according to a dead man who needed to eat cancer to survive.

But still. What if he’s right?

Mulder runs off to Memphis, to find his version of Buddha or God or Elvis, and she wants to laugh at his offer for her to join him. _Find yourself_ , she wants to say, _I’m right here_.

She stays, and takes the case.

Of course she takes the case.

She may not have a desk or a name plate or a door, but she still has this.

Still has a brain, and a badge, and a job.

She still has him.

His cases and his search and the strength of his beliefs.

Following a suspect into a tattoo parlour dressed as she is may appear a little unwise, but she is intrigued despite herself. The design of the ouroboros calls to her; a direct contrast to what she claimed in the office the previous day about life. Here the snake is constantly reborn, life continues on forevermore, a constant loop.

A symbol of infinity.

Of permanence.

She likes it immediately.

Calling a man she has just met is out of character for her, but then she may have cancer, may need to live each life to its fullest, carpe every diem, and hell, it’s not like she has had much in the way of offers recently.

Deep down, she knows the reason for this, _but she may have cancer_. She may be dying. And she will not drag _him_ down that path with her. Not again. He’s already lost too much; she’s not that cruel.

There is something about the tattoo on Ed Jerse’s arm that makes her curious, and the alcohol makes her daring, so when he all but challenges her to get her own, she knows exactly what her design choice is.

The location she picks, the small of her back where _his_ hand inevitably drifts to when he is guiding her to a crime scene, or through a crowd, or, hell, down an empty street, is a given.

Chances everlasting, forever being born anew, tucked like a secret between the heat of his hand and the skin of her back.

She remembers the way his fingertips felt, tracing over the soft skin of her hip on that first case, light by candlelight in a motel room, the tenderness of his gossamer touch, the soft huff of his exhale against the very spot being marked right now. Her breath catches with just the thought of it, and she takes a moment to glance behind her, to check the progress.

It doesn’t take long to complete, and her skin feels tight and tender where the ink has permeated.

It is permanently marked now, for however long she has left.

Of course, then the case takes a trip down Weird Avenue, pretty much par for the course, and then its statements and reports and blood tests. Her results are positive, but mild, and she has no homicidal tendencies, but that is rapidly becoming untrue as Mulder stares at her over his desk and says, hurt and bewildered, that he doesn’t understand where this is coming from.

_All this because I didn’t get you a desk?_

He thinks it’s all about him, and this time, this time is it so far from the truth she wants to laugh.

Or cry.

When she goes home that night, she only hesitates for a moment before reaching for her phone. She calls the number of a doctor she knows specialises in oncology, and gets herself booked in for a diagnostic workup the following week.

The proof is there, in black and white, for the world to see.

Faced with the truth, her truth, the mass big and bright in the middle of her forehead, she again thinks of the tattoo she chose.

Looks at it from the other side.

Sees a stupid snake choking to death on its own stupid tail, too idiotic to notice it’s attacking itself.

Eight words to change her life.

Eight words to change his.

“Mulder? It’s me.” She looks at the image she’s holding, chokes back a sob. This is not something she can tell him over the phone. “I need to see you.”

* * *

 

End

Thoughts?


End file.
